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Cypress Forests, Saudi Profits

Wednesday, 5 August 2015 05:50pm

With new wetland-destroying schemes offered by the fossil-fuel industry every week here in coastal Louisiana, it’s easy to develop a sort of ‘enviro-fatigue.’ Most recently, Maurepas Pipeline LLC has exemplified the nonsensical with its plans to lay more than 100 miles of pipe through the Maurepas Wildlife Management Area (WMA).

All told, this particular potential project would destroy over 335 acres of priceless Cypress forest. Just fewer than 200 of these acres would fall within the WMA, an expanse ironically dedicated to preserving nature.

The proposed Maurepas Pipeline System involves three segments: a 35-mile pipeline set to run from outside Convent to Norco, a matching 35-mile counterpart to move the opposite east-to-west direction, and a final section expected to travel 34 miles west-to-east from the west bank of Saint James Parish to Norco. Together, these stretches of steel will form what’s also branded as the ‘Louisiana Refining System.’

Although Maurepas Pipeline LLC will own, construct, and maintain the aforementioned, the crucial player here is Motiva Enterprises. Motiva operates three Gulf-Region refineries, one of which is in Port Arthur, Texas. Recent renovations have made this Port Arthur location North America’s single largest refinery. Motiva’s remaining two assets are not-so-coincidentally near Convent, and in Norco.

In today’s Internet-enabled world of unprecedented connectivity, ignorance cannot be an excuse for tolerating injustice. Our perpetual reliance on fossil fuels has led to the immense concentration of power and wealth, in this case in the hands of a backward government. While the possibility of losing 300+ acres of invaluable Cypress forest ought to be reason enough to stop this project, the funding of morally corrupt profiteers has to be.